When a document has been added to a transaction or record using the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Workflow Document Attachment feature, these attachments can now be sent with the workflow task notification email. This feature, new to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 R2, is available for PM Batch Approval, Purchase Order Approval, Purchase Requisition Approval, Vendor Maintenance, and the new workflow type, Payables Transaction Approval. For example, you can now enter a payables invoice, scan in and attach the record from the vendor, then submit the invoice for approval. When the approver receives the email, they will get the invoice information and the attachment will show the scanned invoice from the vendor.

Contact Tridea Partners if you are looking to find out more information on GP2015 R2!

Feature of the Day Program:In addition to educating everyone on new features, the Feature of the Day is also meant to evangelize the tremendous features and functionality available in the Microsoft Dynamics GP product.

One of our clients recently encountered an issue where they were unable to see posted invoices for a customer in the Dynamics GP Apply Sales Documents window. These documents were correctly created and processed, and were visible in inquiry, but were not available to have payments applied when viewing the customer in Apply Sales Documents.

After some troubleshooting, we ascertained that the cause of the issue was National Accounts. By default, when a user enters a customer in Apply Sales Documents, the National Account radio button is automatically selected next to View/Apply:

This is normally not a problem, but occasionally the parent account is in a different status or handled differently than the children. In this case, we simply needed to select the Specific Customer option and choose the child from the dropdown; this allowed users to view and apply payments to the invoices that were previously missing!

Pharmaceutical manufacturers that are looking to implement a new ERP system will invariably ask about options for meeting requirements of the Sunshine Act, which was enacted to protect consumers by ensuring transparency in the reporting of financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and health care providers (HCPs). While pharmaceutical companies generally purchase a software system specifically designed to track their aggregate spending to HCPs, the ERP system generates much of the information that is fed into the aggregate spend system.

Typically, money flows from pharmaceutical manufacturers to health care providers in 3 forms, that are generally handled in 3 very distinct manners:

AP invoices directly to HCPs: Vendors that are HCPs are defined as such in the ERP system. Any expenses that are booked in the ERP system directly to HCP vendors are pushed to the aggregate spend system via an integration. Typically, a relatively small number of HCPs become direct vendors in the ERP system. The process of setting up new vendors is generally a highly controlled process that lends itself to accurately defining and identifying an HCP

Employee expense reimbursement: Employees of the pharmaceutical company meet with HCPs and incur expenses that need to be reimbursed to them by the company. Assuming the company has an expense reimbursement system (such as Concur, for example), the expense reimbursement software generally just feeds the core accounting (general ledger) data to the ERP system, and sends the HCP spend information directly to the aggregate spend software. It is therefore necessary to have the HCPs defined in the expense reimbursement system, but the ERP system is not involved in this process.

AP invoices to 3rd party vendors that benefit HCPs: While it is possible to capture this data in the ERP system (on a custom field linked to the PO or invoice) and push it to the aggregate spend system, there are some complicating factors that lead many companies to opt to manually enter these transactions into the aggregate spend software or else upload vendor documents directly to the aggregate spend software in addition to recording the invoices in ERP:

Timing: At the time that a PO or invoice is entered, do we necessarily know which HCPs will benefit from the spend? For example, speaker bureau invoices often arrive in advance of the list of attendees (HCPs)

Accuracy: HCPs that benefit from expenses incurred with 3rd parties are can be very large in quantity. Ensuring that the correct HCP is selected and linked to an expense can be difficult, especially when many health care providers may have similar names (or even the same names). In such cases, AP clerks that have no direct knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the expense could have a difficult time selecting the correct HCP. Aggregate spend software systems typically have matching algorithms to accurately identify HCPs.

Combine General Ledger Inquiry

In Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 R2 in General Ledger, the inquiry windows have been consolidated. Now, you can view open and historical information in the same window for Summary Inquiry, Detail Inquiry and for Account Summary. Any GoTos or drill backs will now go to the single window instead of the user picking open or history.

Contact Tridea Partners if you are looking to find out more information on GP2015 R2!